8:12 PM
by GoldSeven
Summary: While Peter is off to Texas to save the cheerleader, Nathan's thoughts dwell on a certain painting as he goes from exasperation to worry to fury and back again. Set during "Homecoming".


**Characters**: 95 per cent Nathan, plus some Simone, Heidi, Monty & Simon, Marty, Peter, and a Texan sheriff to equal degrees.

**A/N**: Prompted by Nathan's line in _Fallout_: "That painting showed you dead, Peter. And when I got the phone call, I nearly believed it for a minute." More a character study of Nathan Petrelli than anything.

Reviews and comments welcome!

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**8:12 PM**

The little gold hands on the glass-domed clock next to Nathan's desk innocently announced that it was 8:12 PM.

Nathan drew a hand over his face and tried to get back to work. He'd just taken the boys to bed. Simon had complained about him reading the same passage of _The Cat in the Hat_ twice. Nathan hadn't noticed. Heidi was downstairs, reading a book, thinking he was working. He ought to be working. He still had to catch up on the things that had piled up while he'd been in Vegas. Public appearances, opinion polls, and still one or two reporters nosing around his little brother's mental health and alleged suicide attempt.

Tonight, Nathan found himself wishing he'd just had him institutionalised. That would have taken care of just about all of his problems.

When Simone Deveaux had called him that morning to show him the painting Linderman had sent, he should have known that sloshing paint across it and simply telling her not to mention it to Peter wouldn't do the trick. She wasn't his employee; she didn't have to do as told. Moreover, judging by the fact that he'd seen her semi-naked in Peter's apartment a few days ago, she was a bit more than just a friend and would, of course, have told him. Nathan knew that now.

The minute hand moved forward to 8:19.

The painting had hit more of a nerve than he would ever have admitted to Simone. While Peter's single purpose these days seemed to be messing up Nathan's chances to be elected into congress, jumping off buildings insisting he could fly and nearly giving him a heart attack during the family brunch last week, the painting showing Peter prone in front of a homecoming banner with a clock set on 8:12 PM, arms and legs bent at impossible angles, had made every big brother instinct kick in. Nathan didn't care if a junkie artist was capable of painting the future. He didn't care if Peter thought he needed to save a cheerleader, or the world, or the Lower East Side. He had only wanted to keep him from going there. Keep him safe.

Of course, Peter would never see it that way. Over the years, he had interpreted most of Nathan's efforts to keep him away from trouble as purely egoistic on Nathan's part. In all fairness to Peter, there usually had been a certain measure of egoism involved, but his younger brother had always failed to see that what was self-serving was, in effect, the right thing to do.

Simone had called him again in the afternoon, sounding worried. Yes, only worried, the nerve of her. She said she'd tried to call Peter, but he didn't answer his phone. Yes, she'd told him about the painting and had told him where and when Homecoming was. Yes, he was off to Texas. Homecoming was tonight. Peter had said he needed to go, save the cheerleader. Had said it was important to him. And yes, she believed in him. Believed _what_? If she also believed that this painting foretold the future, how could she even have considered telling Peter about it, much less tell him where he needed to go? She might just as well have got him the plane ticket.

It was half past eight.

Texas was an hour behind New York. Whatever would happen, it would happen within the next hour.

Nathan resisted the temptation to try to call Peter again. He had tried twice today, after Simone had told him he'd gone to Texas, but he wasn't answering his phone. At first, Nathan had been furious, certain that Peter had seen the number in the display and hadn't answered. Now, the thought crept in that maybe he couldn't.

_Get a grip_, he told himself. _Nobody can foretell the future. And certainly not a painting by a heroin addict_.

_Oh, yeah?__,_ another thought crept in. _Simone said that other paintings of his came true as well. Peter said he'd seen a painting of himself flying. And Peter claims he's had dreams that came true. When you had your accident, he knew there was another car involved even though he couldn't have known. And how is foretelling the future any weirder than flying?_

This wasn't going to get him anywhere.

Nathan sighed, ran his fingers through his hair, and picked up a memo from the pile, half-heartedly starting to read. He had gained one percent in the polls since last week. His campaign manager said it had probably been the rather favourable newspaper article Oliver Dennison had written about him after that somewhat nerve-wrecking family brunch, which had, in fact, been nothing but a small-scale, exclusive press conference with bagels. Nathan guessed he had to thank Peter for that one percent. And probably for another ten percent that he would have gone down in the polls overnight if his affair with a blonde in Vegas had come out. Peter had displayed some very quick thinking by turning the blonde in question into a doctor Nathan had been seeing about his brother's mental health issues. He'd even fooled Heidi.

He managed to read the first three pages of the memo but got stuck on the fourth. His glance was drawn back to the clock more and more often. Nine o' clock.

He rose abruptly to go down and take Heidi upstairs to the bedroom. She had refused to have the stairs fitted with elevators, insisting she would be able to walk again some day, and she didn't want to ruin the staircases. It was Nathan who had refused to have a nurse around the house at all times to help her with the stairs, so she spent most of the day downstairs and he took her up again at night.

"Pile getting less?"

Nathan gave her a feeble attempt at a smile and nodded.

"Is anything wrong?" No, she was not easily fooled.

"It's… just that the printer hasn't given me an update about the new posters, and the money's out quicker than anyone's business… the usual drawbacks. Nothing serious." Either his smile had been more convincing this time, or she had simply decided not to pry. In either case, she put down her book and let him carry her upstairs.

He was infinitely grateful that she didn't try to get any more out of him, and settled for small talk while he helped her get ready for bed. He left her with her book and was back at his desk at ten past nine.

He stared at the clock hands, wondering where Peter was now, only hoping that the worst that was currently happening to him was boring himself to death at some High School homecoming.

The clock hand moved to 9:12. 8:12 Central time.

Nathan nearly jumped out of his chair when the telephone rang.

He picked it up but didn't get out a sound.

"Nathan? It's Marty. Sorry to disturb you this late."

Nathan felt some life returning to his numb fingers. "It's all right, I'm still up working."

"You asked me to call you if I heard from the print office. They said they wouldn't have the posters done tomorrow. Do you want me to recount all the excuses they gave me?"

Nathan let out his breath in a sigh. "No, don't bother. What did you say?"

"I told them there was no way we're gonna pay the full price now. And I've just called the placarding people to tell them they won't be needed tomorrow. I didn't reach anyone, but I left a message. Looking for another printer right now."

"Good man."

"Do you want me to call when I've got someone?"

"No." There was no way Nathan wanted the phone to ring again tonight, unless it was an emergency. No, make that, there was no way he wanted the phone to ring again at all tonight. "You can handle it, Marty. You can brief me tomorrow morning."

It was a quarter past nine when Nathan hung up the phone. He tried to keep his mind on posters and print offices for as long as he could, trying to sidetrack it to polls and press releases, but he soon found that a cartoony image of a dead Peter kept superimposing itself on top of everything he tried to do.

_Pete, dammit, you knew I'd seen that painting. If you have any sense of courtesy, gimme a call__ just to say you're okay. I do care, and you know it_.

At five past ten, he decided that Peter was not going to call.

At half past ten, he very briefly considered phoning Union Wells High School in Odessa, TX, but quickly disavowed that notion as soon as he thought about what he would say. _Good evening, my name is Nathan Petrelli, running for congress for the 14__th__ district of New York. I was just wondering whether you'd had anyone falling to their death in front of your school recently_.

Not very likely.

The phone call came at a quarter past eleven, just when Nathan had decided to give up both his waiting and any notion of working as a bad job and was about to head off to bed.

In the brief seconds before he grabbed the phone, he had time to register that his hands felt numb with foreboding, and that nobody would make a phone call at this hour, unless it was an emergency. The kind of emergency that had nothing to do with print offices.

"Yes."

"Mr. Nathan Petrelli? The brother of Peter Petrelli?"

Nathan's insides filled with ice. "Yes."

"This is Sheriff Robert McCain, from Odessa, Texas. We've got your brother in custody. There's been a murder at the local high school, and your brother was arrested as the only suspect. He told me to contact you for a lawyer."

It took Nathan several seconds to wrap his brain around these words. The first thing that registered was that Peter was alive. Relief was quickly followed by disbelief at the mention of Peter being the main suspect in a case of homicide, to be replaced instants later by fury at his brother for getting himself arrested trying to play the hero. He did not consider for a second that Peter had anything to do with murder, but all of this sounded so… so… _Peter_.

"That's right." Nathan kept his voice carefully neutral, at the same time feeling like one man trying to put out several fires with one blanket. How was he going to keep this out of the press, for God's sake?

He knew better than to ask what had happened. Inquiries would still be at an early stage and he wasn't going to get any answers. More importantly, he mustn't make anyone even more suspicious by letting on that he had expected something bad to happen tonight. "Can I talk to Peter?"

"I'm… afraid that's not possible right now, sir. He is allowed to talk to a lawyer, yes, but seeing as you're also his brother, that… complicates things."

"I don't care if it complicates things. I want to talk to my brother _now_. And if _you_ complicate things unnecessarily, _my_ lawyers are quite capable of uncomplicating matters for you."

There was a slight pause at the other end. "Are you threatening me, Mr. Petrelli?" Nathan could hear that he had left an impression.

"I have no reason to threaten you, Sheriff. And if you'd be so kind as to put my brother on the phone now, please."

This time, the pause was longer, and after a while, Peter spoke.

"Nathan?"

Half an hour ago, Nathan would have given anything to hear his voice, but now, all he felt at the sound of it, right down to Peter's exhausted, cautious tone, was fury. "Peter, whatever this was all about, you're not going to talk. At all. Not to anybody. Do you understand me?"

Peter seemed to swallow whatever he'd been about to say. Nathan could just about imagine what it would have been. "Yes."

"I'm going to call McHenry tonight. He'll be there tomorrow and take care of things. If anyone gives you any trouble, I wanna know. I'll get you out of there before this goes in the papers. And _don't, _under any circumstances, give them any of your 'save the world' crap. Do you hear me?"

"Look, Nathan, you don't have any idea—"

"_Do you hear me_?"

"Yeah." Even from the one word, Nathan could tell Peter was seething. Fine. Let him. He might as well have a little taste of what he was putting Nathan through.

Whether Peter had handed the telephone back to the sheriff, or the officer had decided their time was up, there was a shuffle, and McCain's voice was back.

"Is there anything else, Mr. Petrelli?"

"No, thank you, Sheriff. My lawyers will be in touch with you."

Nathan couldn't remember rising from his chair, but as he hung up, he found himself standing in front of his desk, still feeling furious. With one swipe of his arm, he knocked the glass-cased clock from his desk and felt some satisfaction at the sound of shattering glass.

Most people managed to stay out of hospital for years at a stretch, and out of prison for their entire lives. Why couldn't Peter? Why did Peter have to make a mess of just about everything _now_, of all times?

With a heavy sigh, Nathan sat back in his chair and took some comfort in the conviction that, at least, things could not possibly get any worse.


End file.
